IPhone Firmware Update Slated for this Friday: Bricking 2.0?

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IPhone Firmware Update Slated for this Friday: Bricking 2.0?

This Friday, it could be déjà vu all over again for those with unlocked iPhones. A handful of U.K.- and U.S.-based news sites are predicting that Apple will upgrade the iPhone firmware this week in conjunction with the Friday launch in the U.K. and Germany.

That could mean, once again, that all the hacks and modifications painstakingly rebuilt after the 1.1.1 update will be rendered obsolete by version 1.1.2.

MacRumors recently reported that the expected update will at the very least break current unlocking software and possibly some third-party applications. Similarly, U.K.-based consumer electronics site, T3 said that the European iPhone will launch this Friday with firmware version 1.1.2 already on the phone.

It took developers and hackers weeks to rejigger their tool sets and unlock the software after the dreaded 1.1.1 release. In fact, the iPhoneSimFree group of developers just revised its own jailbreak application about a week ago.

If version 1.1.2 is indeed in the wings, the other outstanding question is whether Apple will bother issuing warnings this time around. As PC World reports, three days before the 1.1.1 update, Apple started warning unlocked iPhone owners, as well as those with 3rd party apps installed, that the new software would likely disable modified phones. As we all know, those warnings turned out to be more accurate than many would have liked. And yet, while any firmware update will undoubtedly mean more work for hackers, this time around Apple could see significantly less backlash due to the fact it has pre-announced an iPhone SDK in February. In fact, if anyone was still wondering about why Jobs bothered announcing the SDK four months before its release, we may finally have our answer. PR!